High School DxD Hero

Episode 3

I've been doing my best to get used to the artistic style changes of DxD Hero due to a major switch in animation staff, but with the beginning of episode 3, I'm hitting my tolerance limit. The character design tweaks have been a downgrade rather than an improvement, and they look especially rough in the first few minutes of this episode. Granted, the previous season had its fair share of problems with animation consistency, but only at its worst did it look this unappealing. It improves a little as the episode goes on, but at no point during this episode could I call the character animation more than mediocre at best.

That's not the only problem with this episode's opening minute either. Readers of the source novels have mentioned that some important scenes were skipped recently, and this episode seems to be trying to summarize some of what we missed. If that is the case, the script does a poor job of filling us in, with a scene that so utterly lacks context that it's unclear what is going on or why. I'm assuming it's meant to explain why Issei and crew recognize the fog that appears at the end of the episode, but there had to be a better way to handle this.

Beyond that, most of the episode is a mix of Kyoto travelogue with typical DxD shenanigans. About half of these locales are ones that I visited myself in 2016, so they had a nostalgic effect for me. Others look like places that I wish had been on our itinerary, but my tour did have only two days in Kyoto, and you can't see everything in that kind of time. Otherwise, the franchise feels like it's back to its old self with its harem antics, as Issei's attempts to hide Asia's room visit from his friends unwittingly lead to all kinds of sexy escapades involving “transmitting genes,” complete with a certain angel's glow lighting up all the bared chests. This is handled much smoother than what we saw last episode, giving fans the kind of service that attracted them to this franchise in the first place. To make sure that Rias, Akeno, and Koneko aren't left out, we get a flash to them in yet another bath scene, which is also much less awkward than last time. Meanwhile, additional fun is had at Rossweisse's expense.

The pleasant scenery and saucy fanservice is accompanied by at least some plot development. The misunderstanding with the nine-tailed fox girl from last episode is cleared up, so she's now joined Issei's group as their guide around Kyoto, while the adults (including Leviathan) try to deal with her mother's kidnapping. At the end, the guy who appeared in Episode 0 finally pops up to confront Issei and friends, so it looks like we'll be in full battle mode for the next episode. Overall, this episode's positive aspects slightly outweigh its negatives, but it's definitely still an uneven experience.

Rating: B-

High School DxD Hero is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.